Leamington Royals prepare for Optasia Squash Super League Grand Final battle

The Royals remain the only unbeaten team in the SSL, having won four games and drawn two, including a 2-2 winning draw in their final pool fixture against St George’s Hill Knights.

The Royals needed to win only one of the four match ups that night. Despite St George’s Hill junior, Indie Flint, beating Royals’ 16-year-old star Sam Cross in a closely contested Club Hero match, Harvard student Saran Nghiem calmed the nerves of the 80-strong home crowd with a win over Asia Harris.

Royals’ World #7 Satomi Watanabe then won the female pro game against Jazz Hutton, before World #4 Joel Makin evened it up for the Knights with a win over Royals’ European champion, Victor Crouin.

The draw put the Royals level on points with Chichester Centurions, but top on games won.

The Royals have sold their ticket allocation and will be descending on Winchester in force on Friday.

Whilst both teams are missing one or two players, the team line ups are star-studded and, on paper, there is nothing to choose between them.

The Grand Final includes five matches – as opposed to four in the pool matches, with both male and female U25 matches adding to the Club Hero and Male/Female professional games.

First on court tomorrow will be the Men’s U25 game between Royals’ Ben Smith (WR85) up against Centurion, Noah Meredith (WR171) – despite the gap in world rankings, there’s limited difference in their Squash Levels ratings.

Next up is the Ladies U25 game - Royals’ University of Birmingham student, Olivia Besant (WR151), who will be playing on her home court at Winchester, has a tough ask against up and coming star, Torrie Malik (WR43).

The Club Hero game is the third game and Royals’ favourite, Welsh international Owain Taylor (WR107) will be travelling back from a tournament in France to take on former pro, Oli Pett, who had a career high WR48.

The match finishes with the professionals and these promise to be mouth-watering clashes.

WR7 Satomi Watanabe from Japan plays her fifth game in seven for the Royals and will be looking to defend her unbeaten record against the Egyptian star, Salma Hany (WR15). Royals’ fans are delighted Watanabe is on the team sheet as she was supposed to be playing at the Asian Games; however, having sealed qualification for the end of season World Tour Finals in Toronto next week, she is now free to play before flying to Canada on Saturday morning.

The Mens’ professional match sees two England internationals face off with Royals’ World Doubles, European Team and Commonwealth Games gold medallist star Declan James (WR29 and England #4) take on England #5 and fellow European Team gold medallist Curtis Malik (WR31).

It promises to be a terrific festival of squash and what better place to be on a Friday night than watching some of the world’s best pros, the country’s best young (U25) players and Club ‘Heroes’ slug it out over best of three sudden death and all streamed globally live on Squash TV.

Royals’ team Manager and Head Coach, Jason Pike, said: “Our main aim when recruiting was to acquire young, ambitious players, with a focus on local talent at the U25 level, who would be excited to be involved in this new league and with a realistic chance of competing for medals at the LA Olympic Games in 2028.

“Not only have they all played extremely well in their matches, but they have also been amazing with the adults and juniors in the pre-match clinics. The opportunity for club members to get on court with some of the best players in the world has been a huge success story and truly inspirational.

“The atmosphere at home games has been absolutely incredible, with the home crowd really getting behind the Royals’ players and the camaraderie between the players and all the juniors on the front row has been a real highlight.

“At the end of the day, we entered the SSL to take part and have some fun and put Leamington on the map – we’ve done that; it didn’t cross our minds that we would get to Finals night – we didn’t even budget for that – so win or lose, we’ve had a ball and the Royals’ fans will be out in force on Friday night.

“As always, none of this would have been possible without our sponsors, Napton Cidery and Arrow Precision Engineering, who are both associated with the club, and who have agreed to support this opportunity and help bring world class squash to our doorstep. A massive thanks to them for their continued support.”

Winning the SSL would cap a fantastic 12 months for the Leamington club; the club’s Men’s team was crowned National Club Champions for the first time in 2024 and went on to finish 4th in the European Club Championships.

Last weekend the Men’s team successfully defended their National Clubs title and the Ladies team led to a Leamington ‘double, being crowned National Club Champions for the first time. Both teams will now represent England at the European Club Championships in Graz (Austria) at the end of September.